Nov. 21 (Bloomberg) – The worst annual decline in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index has dragged down every industry in the benchmark gauge and 97 percent of its stocks.
All 64 of the S&P 500’s so-called level-three categories, groups such as distributors'' and leisure equipment’’ with as few as one company, dropped in 2008. Among 500 stocks, 483 slipped as the index fell 49 percent, poised for the biggest yearly retreat ever.
There seems to be no bottom,'' Laszlo Birinyi, who oversees more than $350 million as president of Birinyi Associates Inc. in Westport, Connecticut, said on Bloomberg Television. We have no tools that tell us where to go now.‘’
More stocks decreased in the current bear market than in the 49 percent rout after the technology bubble burst in 2000. The breadth of declines this year is leaving investors without defensive strategies to protect against losses that erased more than $8 trillion from U.S. equities in 2008."
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=ayeFNkIkZIc8&refer=home
New York Times:
"Unwelcome by dealers and buyers, thousands of cars worth tens of millions of dollars are being warehoused on increasingly crowded port property.
And for the first time, Mercedes-Benz, Toyota, and Nissan have each asked to lease space from the port for these orphan vehicles. They are turning dozens of acres of the nation?s second-largest container port into a parking lot, creating a vivid picture of a paralyzed auto business and an economy in peril.
?This is one way to look at the economy,? Art Wong, a spokesman for the port, said of the cars. ?And it scares you to death.?